Bed and breakfasts never used to look like this. Instead of chintz, plastic Teasmades and cheap pine furniture, at 40 Winks in Stepney Green, east London, there are extravagant artworks, antiques and an overriding sense of high, theatrical glamour. In the bathroom, rather than an avocado suite, you find a silver tub with a lion's mouth for a tap, in front of an artfully distressed gold wall, and the breakfast room is modelled on Rome's 16th-century Palazzo Sacchetti.
"Mary McCartney was here last week, doing a photoshoot of Daisy and Pearl Lowe," says David Carter, the interior designer who owns it. "And tomorrow we're doing a shoot for a Dutch lingerie company."
In fact the four-storey townhouse, which dates from 1717, has been used for all manner of celebrity and fashion shoots, so Mark Owen's been in the bathtub, Orlando Bloom has lounged on the chaise longue and German Vogue declared it "the most beautiful small hotel in the world". But this is still a B&B, and a reasonably priced one at that: there are just two rooms – a single for £90 a night and a double for £130, both sharing the same bathroom.
While Carter's eye for interiors is unique, his decision last year to open the spare bedrooms of his home to paying guests is not. A growing number of designers, artists and gallery owners are renting out rooms and creating a new breed of super-stylish B&Bs. For the owners it's a chance to find new income in a recession, and draw in a new audience for their creative endeavours; for the customers they provide an interesting alternative to the increasingly identikit boutique hotel.
Similar things are happening around the country. After working in New York for Donna Karan, then in London and Italy, knitwear designer Wallace Shaw has returned to his native Scotland to open two rooms in his home within the grand Leith Assembly Rooms in Edinburgh. In Hastings, East Sussex, fashion designer Lionel Copley runs the luxurious four-room Swan House B&B in a 15th-century cottage; in Aberdyfi, Gwynedd, designer Ann Hughes runs Llety Bodfor, a chic seaside property where if you like anything in your room, you can buy it from her interiors shop next door; and in Bath, sculptor Robert Hornyold-Strickland rents three rooms in his pretty Georgian house, letting guests watch him at work during their stay.
In Whitstable, the Front View gallery has been building up a reputation for its exhibitions of contemporary photography, but last year owners Julie Thorne and Tom Sutherland diversified into providing accommodation. "We were thinking about ways of getting more people to the gallery, then suddenly I had the idea of opening the rooms," says Thorne, who also works as an art director in the fashion industry. The couple converted two bedrooms in their home adjoining the gallery, decorating them to a standard that can rival any full-service hotel, but with an attention to detail that no large property can imitate. There's an airy, seaside theme – white-painted floorboards and rugs, white iMac computers on which you can watch TV, and complimentary drinks and chocolate. Breakfast is laid out in the gallery, and seems to have been as delicately curated as the exhibitions, from the artful choice of glassware to the old Kilner jars for the granola and cereal, the antique teapots and cute silver butter knife. Each double costs £95 a night, or a family can take both for £155.
Some within the hospitality industry are likening the trend to the "supper club" scene, where chefs or keen amateurs open their flats or houses to paying diners in search of a more original, intimate evening out.
"The thing is that over the last few years the boutique hotel concept has become so standard that it's very hard to stand out," says Justin Salisbury, the 22-year-old founder of Artist Residence, which opened in Brighton two years ago, to be followed in May this year by an outpost in Penzance. Salisbury himself isn't an artist, but all the staff he employs are. And while the prospect of a fearsome landlady meant many approached B&Bs with trepidation, now the chance to meet an owner who is plugged into the local art scene is part of the selling point.
"People are searching for experiences that are more authentic," says 40 Winks' Carter. "They want to have a connection with something human, rather than robots who have been on a customer-care programme."
The idea has certainly caught on. When he opened 10 months ago he anticipated hosting guests for the odd night, but now finds himself constantly booked. "I get emails from people saying they'll come anytime we have a vacancy in the next three months. It's taken over my life!"
In fact, rather than being the preserve of budget travellers, these B&Bs are even beginning to trump high-end hotels to become the most fashionable addresses to stay at. Carter confides that Kristin Scott Thomas roughed it in Stepney Green while in town for a Bafta event. "She had the choice of Claridge's or 40 Winks – and she plumped for 40 Winks!"
